The couple: Léan Firtéar & Micheál Ó Móráin
Length of engagement: 9 months | Wedding date: 8th June 2013
Wedding ceremony: St Mary’s Church, Dingle | Wedding venue: Skellig Hotel in Dingle
Photographer: Andrew O’Dwyer Photography
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We met…. Micheál is a brother of one of Léan’s best friends Aeilín! So I guess we have always known each other in some way… Micheál was home one weekend from Cork and Aeilin was having a party for her birthday and Lean caught his eye… and a few months later he plucked up to courage to ask her out (after clearing it with Aeilín first!)
Our proposal… I knew Léan always wanted it to be a surprise and also that it would be simple and understated. I ran the Dingle marathon last year and the next day when we were on the way back to Cork from Dingle Léan suggested a walk on Inch beach because the weather was so good. So during the walk I made a quick sneaky call to her dad to ask him if it was okay to ask Léan to marry me… he said work away! I then got down on one knee and asked her if she would do me the honour of being my wife!
Our wedding theme/colours… To be honest I was very relaxed when it came to themes and colours. We chose the bridesmaid colours when I went shopping with the bridesmaids for their dresses and I just told them to choose a colour that they all liked! Then we kind of worked from there using the navy in the invitations and mass booklets etc. For the rest of the wedding we just wanted it to be good fun… So my dad made a photo booth for us and we had a band called Longbeach who were very lively and we also had a ceilí in the middle of it all!
My dress… the designer was Lyn Ashworth (a London based designer) and I got it in Memories Bridal Boutique in Cork.
My hair and make up… Cathriona from Cathriona’s Hair Salon in Castlegregory in Kerry came to the house that morning to do our hair and Elaine Higgins-Brosnan from Pure Beauty on Main Street in Dingle came to the house to do the make-up.
Our ceremony… The priest was Fr Eugene Kiely based in Ballyferriter in Dingle and he is also a family friend. He was assisted by Fr Kevin Moran, a cousin of the groom, who flew from Seattle to attend the wedding. The ceremony music was played by my cousins from Cork: Eabha, Ciara, Meadhbh and Eoghan and their Mam Rose. My college friend Nora played Peter Gabriel’s The Book of Love on the harp during the signing of the register.
We chose our photographer because… After looking through lots of websites of sample wedding shots of a lot of photographers we decided that Andrew’s (Andrew O’Dwyer Photography) easy-going relaxed style might be for us. After meeting him then in person we knew that he was the man for us! After the wedding a lot of the guests were talking about how polite Andrew was all day! We were delighted with our choice and he made us both feel very comfortable in front of the camera!
Our menu… We are both huge foodies! So the menu was very important to us. For starters there was a choice of Seafood Platter or Smoked Chicken Salad. For the Main Course it was a choice of Monkfish, Fillet of Beef cooked to order or Chicken stuffed with Anascaul Black Pudding. And Dessert was a trio of mini desserts.
My favourite part of the wedding day... Too difficult to choose one… getting ready with family and friends in the morning… meeting at the top of the aisle…watching everyone having fun at wedding we planned so hard together… dancing together at the end of the night as husband and wife!
We chose our venue because… We are both from Dingle and wanted to get married there. We chose the Skellig because of the very high quality of food there and their attentiveness to detail. They manage to bring this high quality to everything they do and still maintain a relaxed and comfortable atmosphere.
My piece of advice for other brides… Enjoy every minute of the day! No matter what you got done or didn’t get done the day is going to go ahead regardless…and if you are enjoying yourself everyone else will too! So don’t stress and take it all in! It goes by way too quickly so savour every minute of it!
